saugatak

I can't believe this thread is over 30 pages long. Why can't we all just let everyone run what they want on their own PCs without meddling in their business?

TomCat

ROFLMAO. Take your WinXP CD and copy i386 directory on to your hard drive and then use nLite to integrate SP2 and post-SP2 hotfixes and then remove stuff you don't like. I'd also recommend using HFSLIP which I like better than nLite to integrate latest hotfixes into your nLited CD. Just click on HFSLIP logo on my signature to find out. You should also read the excellent instructions. You'll find 'em at nliteos.com.

Dirt, you need a LOT more hotfixes in your HF folder. You're missing almost all of them. Check out Tomcat's list and follow his instructions exactly. If you are using FDV files, you should not be using Win Media Player Installer since FDV fileset removes WinMedia Player. Also, the names of your folders appear to be off.

Well now that this is all sorted out, maybe FDV should update his Win2k SP5 and WinXP/2003 HFSLIP pages to have a link to Tomcat's instructions and command file for how to integrate the latest hotfix to the MSXML4 file? This is just a suggestion BTW.

Link, all I can say is just check your TaskManager to see that use of NOD32 does cause a significant spike in paged kernel resources. Is NOD32 kernel usage more than other AVs? I dunno. I'm happy with NOD32, have had no problems with it and like it better than everything else I've ever tried so I don't plan to test. Cluberti says that only Macafee had worse kernel usage. I've read a lot of Cluberti's posts and he's very knowledgable and has insights that I'd expect from someone working at M$, so I believe that at the time he tested, NOD32 was probably the 2nd worst offender in terms of kernel usage. Things might have changed since then as the various AV makers have tweaked and reworked their programs.

No it's fine Tomcat, didn't mean to upset you because I think your webpage for both Win2k and XP is excellent, was just confused on DX9, what with all the options and all.

Well, what you guys were talking about was a little above my skill level Just wondering, do I need to rerun your script Tomcat after your modifications due to Yzowl's suggestions?

That's why I use the last version before it was taken over. v5.5. Hasn't failed me yet. Except for that time the Ms. clicked Yes on something while I was in the bathroom. Latest version I believe was 5.6.2808.0 which I have

You can download trial versions of WordPerfect Office at corel.com. The new version WordPerfect Office 13 came out. The main positive of this office suite is that it's more mature and better than OOo and cheaper than M$ Office. Compared to M$ Office, it has one huge plus, and that is the WordPerfect wordprocessor program itself. Whereas M$ Office and OOo use "styles" which are difficult to use (almost like applying object oriented programming to word processing), WordPerfect uses "stream-formatting" codes. There are 2 types of codes, "open gate" codes and "closed gate" codes. It works like this. You type stuff and it appears on the document, then you select double spacing which is an "open-gate" code. What this means is that from the appearance of the double spacing open gate code, all text is double spaced until you change it later. A closed gate code is one where there is a an "on" code and and "off" code, like HTML. It's a very simple and powerful way to format documents in contrast to styles. WordPerfect allows you to see all of the codes being used with the Reveal Codes feature and you can directly format the codes, add codes, or remove codes for incredibly fine control over your document. Once you get used to Reveal Codes, you can't go back to a $hitty style-based wordprocessor like Word or Writer, where you have to worry about style sheet dependencies, or you change a style by accident and then all the formatting in your document gets screwed up. EDIT: BIG DRAWBACK to WordPerfect is lack of Unicode. If you just stick to English and Western European languages, it won't be a problem, but if you use other foreign languages, WordPerfect is not for you.

I understand now but I think even on XP page you can say these updates are optional and only needed for certain games, as Oleg mentioned. This way, if you're doing a business build of XP, you can ignore those CABs but if you're building a gaming rig, you might put them in.

I noticed on Tomcat's Win2k page, he says that the "[date]_d3dx9_[number]_x86.cab" files are optional. On Tomcat's WinXP page, the "[date]_d3dx9_[number]_x86.cab" files are required. What's the difference? Why are they optional in Win2k but not required in WinXP. Both TommyP and FDV said that they're worthless bloat, just wondering what these files contain and why they are required for XP but not Win2k.

On Tomcat's page, he recommends slipstreaming "wmp6cdcs.exe" (Windows Media Player 6 codecs) only when using Windows Media 6.4. I guess that means to use wmp6cdcs.exe only under these circumstances: not slipstreaming Windows Media Player 9 and leaving Windows Media 6.4 in the install. If one is either a. slipstreaming Window Media Player 9 OR b. ripping out Windows Media Player 9 in favor of Media Player Classic THEN no need to slipstream wmp6cdcs.exe, is that correct?

Thanks Tomcat!

Whether NOD32 uses a lot of kernel resources is not the issue. The issue is: 1) whether NOD32 uses more kernel resources than other AV programs; and 2) whether using more kernel resources has a visible negative impact on performance. I've tried Norton, Avast, AVG Anti-Virus and NOD32. NOD32 is by far the fastest at going through a hard drive. Avast and NOD32 IMHO were tied in terms of detecting viruses and trojan horses. NOD32 and AVG were both very lightweight in terms of system resouces, although until now I never checked kernel usage. Norton was effective but visibly slowed system resources. Based only on my own experiences on my system, NOD32 offered the best combination of speed and performance. But I could see how NOD32 might cause problems if you are running programs or doing other things on your system that required more kernel resources. So for now I plan to stick to NOD32, but I do appreciate Cluberti offering his insights.

What?!!!? Are you installing the latest Win2k w/ SP4 and hotfixes? I've done clean installs of Win2k and XP SP2. With IE6 Win Media Playre 9 in Win2k, the Win2k install is about 850 MB and XP with Media Player 10 is about 1.7 GB. The XP uses FAR more system memory and resources, even after I put in a real firewall on Win2k, mainly because XP has far more processes running in the background. When I use FDV fileset and nLite on Win2k and nLite on XP to rip out all the junk, Win2k still runs leaner and faster.

This is news to me. I've tried out a lot of AV apps and Nod32 has always been the fastest and lightest. Hmm, looks like I'll have to do some testing. BTW, before M$ got into AV apps, didn't you guys use Nod32? Edit: Mr. Cluberti may be right. All you have to do is go into Task Manager without Nod32 running and with Nod32 running and you'll see that a lot of kernel resources are being used by Nod32.

RyanVM is the man. I like what he's done. OTOH, I've already used HFSLIP to create my XP CD (worked great! Thanks again TommyP ) so I've already created the HFSLIP folder structure and collected all the hotfixes. I do use a bunch of RyanVM's switchless installers.

I'll be glad to help you beta test.

Already tried. Didn't work. It's a laptop, you know how they all have customized parts and drivers. As for XP bloat, you're not kidding. That OS is just a pig. If I'm forced to use it more, M$ had better release a SP3 because integrating 50+ hotfixes took forever.

Oleg, I don't see the instructions for HFCLEANUP. Also I'm having trouble following what you're doing because there's threads all over the place. Let me know if I can help you out with instructions. I'm thinking ideally, once you work it out, it'd be great if there was an "Oleg Fileset" commented much like FDV's fileset so we could all see the source and then use ; to comment stuff out. HFSLIP could have an OLEGFILES folder and we could slip in FDV fileset and OLEG fileset, run HFSLIP and end up with a nice ISO at the end with nothing more to do.

Dirt, if you mouse over the CMD window and click, HFSLIP will stop working. Then you've got to click on the window again and hit the space bar. I've hung HFSLIP a few times that way. Check that out, see if it helps. BTW, I'm creating an HFSLIP for WinXP right now because I'm fixing a friend's computer with hardware that doesn't have Win2k drivers and dear God, XP is one huge sucker, the HFSLIP is taking forever.

Depends on what programs you run. Look at nLite board. They have a stickied thread which tells you what services programs require. Post the programs you run. I'm pretty good at telling most dependencies. In the end, though, you have to test yourself. You'd be amazed at what stupid things programs you run require.

What in Windows XP is it that you hate that even nlite cannot remove? What bloat are you referring to? I initially removed a lot of crap with nLite. Was delighted. Then I had to use a program which used a feature I removed. ****, you can't re-install something once you've removed it with nLite. This happened a few more times plus making coasters because I thought something worked OK on VM machine but in reality it didn't work on real machine. Finally, I said screw it, I'll downgrade back to Win2k since programs installing on Win2k have fewer dependencies (for example, lots of XP programs use the system restore point feature which requires COM+ and a bunch of other services that I had previously removed). I was also using XP pre-SP1 and after SP1 when it was flaky compared to Win2k. Supposedl post-SP2 XP got better and more stable, but it's still slower than Win2k. I'm now having to switch back to Win XP on a few machines from my beloved Win2k, which p***es me off, because they use hardware for which there are no Win2k drivers.

Don't know if anyone is interested in this, but this guy has created a program that removes hotfix backup files that litter any old install. We all just HFSLIP a new install but some might be interested in checking this out. http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_hotfix_backup.htm Optimized for XP, says it'll work on Win2k but no guarantees. I'll give it a shot on an old Win2k laptop that's littered with old installs.